


Half

by MapleLantern



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - His Dark Materials Fusion, Daemons, His Dark Materials Inspired, M/M, Past Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-29
Updated: 2017-08-27
Packaged: 2018-11-21 05:01:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11350407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MapleLantern/pseuds/MapleLantern
Summary: Kylo and Hux have daemons. That's it. (So do Matt and Techie.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Shut Up, Saoirse! That was the only reasoning behind her name.

\-----

Saoirse usually sat on his shoulder when he walked the ship.

Like him, she liked to keep her eyes on everything that was going on, and could often relay to him little tidbits which he might have missed, gleaned from the behaviour of other daemons. She rarely left her place there during the day, unless they hadn’t slept well, where upon she would crawl down into his pocket to sleep, bolstering his energy by conserving hers.

She still didn’t like to interact with the other daemons as a rule - even though Hux knew the importance of socialising with his officers and would watch as their daemons would play fight or circle one another - some of their shared scars still remained on her body even after she had settled, and both of them were naturally distrustful. But nevertheless she always remained steadfastly on his shoulder, her small body a resolute weight against his neck.

Although sometimes there were moments of exception.

Like one day when Hux made a point of speaking to Mitaka and saying that he would be having words with Kylo Ren; that choking his bridge staff was not acceptable.

Mitaka had given him a nervous smile, and they had both been startled when Saoirse had made her way down Hux’s outstretched sleeve to where his hand was resting on Mitaka’s workstation, and given his robin daemon a gentle headbutt. The little bird had chirped in reasonable surprise, all her feathers puffing up to make her look like a small round ball.

It was brief and Saoirse had climbed back up his sleeve without hurry when she was finished. No one had said a word, but Mitaka had given Hux a sickeningly grateful look anyway.

\-------------  
\----

 

She’s a dog. Of course she’s a dog.

Hux muttered as much to Saoirse, who was peeking out from the pocket of his greatcoat, and she sniggered with him.

Kylo Ren’s daemon matched him like Saoirse matched Hux. She was big, like him, dark, like him, and she moved with a kind of graceful lope that also matched her human perfectly.

There were some tense pleasantries before Ren stormed off to inspect his new quarters. Hux stood for a moment, and they watched the pair go.

The other daemon’s ears had been laid flat against her skull the entire time.

\----  
\-------------------

Hux’s father had laughed himself sick when Saoirse had settled. He’d thought it fitting for slender Armitage; weak, tiny, helpless...

Brendol had never had to raise a hand to his son again, probably a useful thing for him seeing as Hux was finally beginning to grow taller and stronger. Instead his daemon would just take Saoirse by the neck.

She had sat on Hux’s shoulder the entire time Brendol laughed, her nose on the shell of his ear as a silent comfort, and he had never in the last twenty years wished that her form had settled differently. Not once.

 

\----  
\--  
\-------------------

Standing before Snoke, his dog daemon begins to suit Ren even more.

They are both alert, but when Snoke barks out his displeasure she lays down with a whine. The slightest hint of approval and her tail begins to wag.

Ren might be able to hide his emotions behind a mask, but he can’t hide his daemon like Hux can. If Hux is frightened, Saoirse can hide in his pocket to tremble. If Snoke’s words are cruel, Ren can do nothing to hide how his daemon’s head drops to her large paws and her ears lower to the sides.

Though the daemon doesn’t do it, Hux thinks the image of Ren rolling over or sitting on command is a fitting one.

\--------------


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO --------------

 

Hux isn’t sure how long he has been watching his newly found brother sleep, tucked up in Hux’s bunk with a couple of bandages on the worst of his injuries until Hux could get him to medbay, when Saoirse makes a sympathetic chitter noise in his ear.

“Oh, let me down…” She whispers to him; and her voice is so shaky that Hux can’t do anything but obey her. He lifts her gently and places her down on the blanket next to Techie’s bandaged fingers.

He watches her trot up to sit near his shoulder, delicately balancing herself with a paw on his arm. He hears her begin to whisper, so quietly even he can’t catch the words, and suddenly knows what she’s doing, feeling foolish for not immediately realising.

After a few minutes, a tiny, whiskered nose appears from between long strands of greasy red hair, sniffing timidly at Saoirse, and the relief which courses through them both would have knocked Hux on his ass if he wasn’t already sitting. 

He holds Techie’s uninjured hand while Saoirse curls up where she is, nose to nose with his twin’s mostly hidden yet very present daemon, until both are properly asleep and Hux can scoop her up before padding quietly out of the bedroom.

Kylo is sitting at his desk with Hux’s tablet in his hands. His daemon is laying on the floor beside him and she when Hux comes into the room. 

“What are you doing?”

“Deleting security footage.” 

“Oh.”

“He asleep?”

Hux makes an affirmative noise as he retrieves a half empty bottle of brandy from a cupboard and takes a long drink straight from the bottle, collapsing into the empty armchair. His heart is in his mouth, his head is a mess and he’s exhausted. At an insistent scrabble, he unbuttons his collar so that Saoirse can curl against his collarbone.

Kylo is watching him.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Then stop it.”

Kylo does, turning back to the tablet. 

After a minute or so, Kylo’s daemon comes and lays down at Hux’s feet instead, her head resting over Hux’s boot. The weight on his foot is as much of a comfort as the small weight of Saoirse at his neck as Hux falls asleep in his chair. 

\-----------------

 

The next morning,caf in hand, Hux was inspecting one of the tie hangar bays. Thanisson was in the middle of explaining some anachronistic part of their logging system when there was an almighty crash followed by a loud squawk from the corridor. 

Hux saw several of the assembled officers groan or roll their eyes, and raised an eyebrow at Thanisson in question. 

Thanisson grimaced in turn. "One of the technicians, Sir."

The outraged squawk was promptly followed by an undoubtedly daemon voice cursing impressively between caws.

"Fucking screech bird..." Someone muttered.

"We sure we need radars?" Volunteered someone else in a whisper. "I'll give landing a fighter without one a go if we can get some peace and quiet."

Hux didn’t need to ask exactly which technician this was, all he needed was to hear the, indeed ear splitting, screeching of the man’s daemon. There was only one bird of that type on this ship, as daemons of those raised almost exclusively in space rarely settled so, and it belonged to a man in operations. 

They kept close tabs on how stormtroopers’ daemons settled. They tended to settle as dogs, but there were exceptions, and those individuals were always carefully monitored. Sometimes it was an early indication that an individual wasn’t going to be suited to the programme, and they could be transferred or dealt with as soon as possible. Birds were a bit of a hit and miss, and this particular technician had been a definite miss. 

The cawing began again before he could comment:

“Fuck! Fucking fuck, fucking!” 

“You’re not helping!” Roared a human voice.

One officer at the monitor bank had to stifle her snigger and Hux noticed Thanisson’s mouth twitch. He resisted the urge to roll his eyes, steering the conversation back to the logging systems and steadfastly ignoring the colourful chorus coming from the corridor. 

Once he’s finished however, he takes the route which will take him through said corridor, where he finds a shock of blonde hair sitting next to an open panel surrounded by various screws and bolts. The offending daemon, who is wandering around beside him, fluffs her crown as Hux approaches but stays blessfully silent.

“Technician,” He says to get the man’s attention. “A little less noise, if you please, next time.”

The man has the grace to flush, at least, if not to look at all contrite. 

“Yes sir.” He mumbles, reaching out a hand to his daemon. She hops onto his fingers, clawed toes gripping tightly, before hopping onto his shoulder. She’s still all puffed up and glaring at Hux, unashamedly aggressive, but he ignores her. On his own shoulder, Saoirse starts to wash her face, unconcerned. 

“Carry on then.”

As he walks away he hears the man hiss at his daemon “You’re a moron.” only to receive a snigger in return. 

 

\------

 

Hux goes back to his quarters on his break, instead of making his usual way to the officer’s mess, after putting in a request to have food brought there. He didn’t know what his brother could eat, so he tried to make it a varied selection based on his own preferences, which was fairly easy seeing as he tended to eat anything and everything when he could get his hands on it. Kylo had found that fact hysterical. 

Techie was actually awake, curled in a corner of Hux’s bed as far away from the viewport as he could. 

“I’m having food sent up.” Hus says, sitting on the far end. 

“Ok.”

“Is there anything you can’t eat?”

His brother shrugs, not meeting his eye. “I don’t- I don’t know.”

“Alright.”

The silence is awkward. Hux isn’t sure if he presence is making things worse or not, but it’s not like he can stay away all the time so Techie will have to get used to it. 

There’s a tiny shift of Techie’s hair, and Hux decides to just ask. It’s… direct, but he’s desperate to know. 

“Is she alright?”

“Huh?”

“Your daemon. Is she alright?”

Techie flinches, but then gathers himself and nods. “Sh-she’s fine.”

“May Saoirse meet her?”

His brother gives him a wary look, almost like he’s afraid to refuse. Maybe he is, but Hux had phrased is as gently as he knew how. 

“Ok…”

Scooping her from his shoulder, Hux puts Saoirse down on the blanket. She scratches behind an ear quickly before sitting up on her back legs, sniffing curiously, as if she hadn’t been almost sitting on Techie’s shoulder last night. 

Techie looks at her for a moment, then reaches up behind his neck and deposits his daemon close to her, keeping his hand on her gently. 

Something inside Hux twists. 

She’s tiny - half Saoirse’s size, if that - with a shorter and fuzzier tail, but what hurts the most is that where her eyes should be black and beady, one is milky white and the other just looks… missing. He should have expected it, but it still makes him ache. 

Saoirse approaches her slowly, letting her sniff her out first, before touching noses with her. She still startles a bit, trembling, and Techie’s breath hitches. He still has his hand over her back, ready to snatch her away again at a moment’s notice, but Saoirse merely gives the little dormouse a few licks and settles beside her.

“What’s your name?” He hears Saoirse ask. 

“S-Sephy.” Techie answers instead. “Persephone.”

Hux is going to have to kill someone for this, but before he can get too far into that thought, the door chimes, indicating their lunch has arrived.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eeeee omg thank you for comments!!! I'm glad you like these rambles ^_____^

CHAPTER THREE

Kylo’s daemon had taken to prowling the bridge. 

It wouldn’t have been an issue, apart from meaning that Kylo was also constantly present, if she would mind her own business while doing so. As it was, she kept growling and snapping at other daemons as she passed, sometimes coming dangerously close to biting, without any form of obvious provocation. Saoirse had scurried along to observe after the first several incidents, hidden behind feet and monitors and railings.

It was common enough for daemons to play fight, especially between stormtroopers and not rare between officers even though they should, theoretically, know better, but that wasn’t what Kylo’s daemon was doing. She was stalking, and where Hux was used to having to step around or over the occasional squabble of a cat and a weasel, or a snake and a curious creature he couldn’t name, he wasn’t used to seeing all the daemons huddling close to their humans out of anxiety. 

It was disrupting the smooth operations of the bridge staff, to say the least. 

“Will you tell her to please cease this endless prowling?” He snapped one morning after this had been going on for a week, trying to keep a tone of civility. “It’s causing upset among the crew.”

For a moment he thinks Kylo isn’t going to bother with an answer.

“He.”

Hux frowns. “Excuse me?”

He can’t see through the helmet but the tilt of Kylo’s head seems defiant.

“He’ll ‘prowl’ wherever he wants.” Kylo clarifies, and Hux is surprised enough not to comment further as Kylo - and daemon - stride off the bridge in a dramatic swirl of robes. 

*

Hux has the rest of his shift to digest that piece of information, but every time his mind wanders to it it makes his skin crawl and he finds his fingers raising to his shoulder, to cup over Saoirse's body protectively. 

Objectively, he knows there are people whose daemons are the same gender as they are, but he’s never encountered one before. It’s… disquieting. 

No one has ever been able to come to a scientific reason for the more common sex opposition, let alone the rare cases of same sex daemon and human. There have been numerous theories concerning reasons for the latter, ranging from indications of witchcraft to homosexuality, although all have so far proved inconclusive. It’s entered a strange sort of folkloristic ken, people with same sex daemons; like a baby being born with a caul or a set of teeth...

Saoirse scrunches up her nose when he asks her about it.

“Don’t ask me things you already know the answers too.” She huffs. “It’s a bad habit.”

“I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t confident in your knowledge.” He snips back. “I assumed you may know more than the basics.”

“How would I?”

He shrugs and she wobbles on her perch, but it serves her right for being obstinate. She nips his earlobe in retaliation. 

*

After that particular spat, things become simultaneously better and worse. Better because Kylo’s daemon stops stalking the bridge, but worse because in his place Kylo himself has taken to hovering around Hux, almost as if he’s daring Hux to say something. 

Which is how thee find out his name.

He makes a snap for Saoirse while Hux and Kylo snipe at each other, and she in turn sinks her teeth into the other daemon’s nose, which makes Kylo yelp at the same moment as his daemon. 

“Get her off!”

Hux makes a grab for her with one hand. “Saoirse!” 

It isn’t a rebuke, although he isn’t pleased that she bit the other daemon - it shows far too much of them in one gesture - and when she settles in his pocket she curls into an obstinate ball.

Kylo has dropped into a crouch and flung his arms around his daemon’s neck, although they are both still glaring.

“Do that again,” He growls. “And I’ll snap your neck.”

“So dramatic. She- He’s fine.”

“Ren.”

“What?” Hux doesn’t know why he says it, because he knows what Kylo means. He’s just surprised that Kylo volunteered the information. It wasn’t something anyone would usually… tell someone else. If you picked up a name by circumstance it was fine - Kylo had heard him hiss Saoirse’s name more than once - but to outright tell was crude. That and just… “Really?”

Whoever Kylo’s parents were, their daemons had a strange sense of humour. It crosses Hux’s mind, not for the first time, that he’s lucky it wasn’t Brendol’s daemon who was tasked with Saoirse’s name or she would have ended up with something similarly ridiculous. 

Again, Kylo gives him that defiant look, so Hux keeps his mouth shut as he watches the pair of them storm away.


End file.
